Sharia law, super PACs roil primary

Tennessee multimillionaire Andy Miller has been warning for years about the lurking threat he says Sharia law poses to America. But this summer, his anti-Islam campaign has become the main act of a riveting Middle Tennessee congressional race, as Miller has pumped hundreds of thousands of dollars into a pair of super PACs aiming to take out GOP freshman Rep. Diane Black in her Thursday primary.

Black’s sin, according to Miller, is not taking the danger of Islam seriously enough. And he has found an ideological soul mate in Lou Ann Zelenik, a tea party activist and former construction company executive who lost to Black in 2010 by a mere 283 votes.

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Zelenik launched a rematch this year. And a centerpiece of her campaign, again, is her opposition to the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro, a project that’s drawn national attention and cast the city of 110,000 as a hot spot of religious intolerance.

Though Black is still likely to win — she is one of the wealthiest members of Congress and has spent more than $1 million of her own funds on the race — Miller has made it less than a sure thing. His outsize role underscores the power a single donor who’s determined to advance an agenda or settle a score can wield in the post- Citizens United era of free-spending super PACs.

In an interview, Miller argued that Black refused to throw her weight against the planned mosque during her first congressional campaign two years ago. He called Black naive and dismissive of the creeping influence of Sharia law, the code of Islamic beliefs and practices, on U.S. courts.

“I don’t think she believes there is a problem with Islam,” Miller said. “She doesn’t understand it. She doesn’t care about it. She has no knowledge of it.”

“She wouldn’t entertain talk about it in the campaign in 2010,” he added. “It was a lot like the way a lot of middle-of-the-road Republicans treat Islam as the third rail of politics — they don’t want to talk about it.”

Enter Zelenik, an outspoken anti-Islamic activist.

“I will work to stop the Islamization of our society and do everything possible to prevent Sharia law from circumventing our laws and our Constitution,” Zelenik wrote on her campaign website, where she also vows to work to repeal the Democratic health care law and to oppose raising the debt ceiling.

In 2010, Zelenik accused Black of not being more outspoken against the Murfreesboro mosque. During that same race, Zelenik, a former Rutherford County, Tenn., Republican Party chairwoman, ran an online fundraising appeal asking supporters to “stand with Lou Ann against Muslim extremists.”

Miller and Zelenik developed a bond as leaders of the Tennessee Freedom Coalition, formed last year to “educate Tennesseans” about “Islamic radicalization,” among its other stated causes. He served as Zelenik’s campaign finance chairman prior to resigning from the position in late May, just weeks before he began funding TV ads against Black.

“I’ve gotten to know Lou Ann, and I know she cares about a lot of the things I care about,” Miller said.

A spokeswoman for Black dismissed Miller as “an angry multimillionaire with a personal grudge who is trying to influence a congressional election” and contended that Black had been vocal about her concerns with the construction of the Murfreesboro mosque. The spokeswoman, Jennifer Baker, said Black had recently signed on to a Republican-sponsored anti-Sharia law bill in the House.

Baker also argued that Miller’s close ties with Zelenik raise questions about whether he was coordinating his TV ads with her campaign, which would be a potential violation of federal campaign finance laws.